Susan Wendell

“Since 1997, I have been interested in studying the ethics and politics of
psychosomatic medicine, especially the influence of gender, race and class
on psychosomatic diagnosis. I am also doing philosophical analysis of
current causal theories of psychosomatic illness (theories of mind-body
interaction) and the implications of those theories for diagnosis and
treatment of physical symptoms, especially in women. I anticipate that this
work will eventually result in a book on psychosomatic medicine.”

From a review of “Rejected Body”:
"Diagnosed in 1985 with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue
syndrome, Susan Wendell's reflections address her struggle first with
illness and then with the lasting "social and psycho-ethical" conflicts
illness and disability generate in contemporary Western culture. Her
specific focus on feminist theory comes from her increasing awareness that "knowledge people with disabilities have about living with bodily suffering
and limitation and how their cultures treat rejected aspects of bodily life
. . . did not inform theorizing about the body by non-disabled feminists and
that feminist theory was consequently both incomplete and skewed toward
healthy, non-disabled experience"(p.5).
A chapter on "Who is Disabled?" engages current definitions of disability,
who produces them, for what purposes, and to what effect. This chapter
addresses the cases of illness and aging and explores the political and
other values of the category, "people with disabilities." Other chapters
discuss the social construction of disability, disability and illness as
stigmatized states that might be re-envisioned as "difference," the
enculturation of myths about bodily control and independence, medical
authority's inflection of embodiment, the importance of disability
perspectives to feminist ethics, and perspectives on transcending the body."